Here's Lookin' at you, kid.
It's a busy week at our house.
We have some friends visiting and staying with us for a few days. They'll be moving to New Orleans this summer and are using their Spring Break to come here and go apartment hunting. In celebration of their upcoming move, we had a "crawfish boil" at our house last night.
Now crawfish isn't really a thing I understood before moving to Louisiana. In fact, I still don't really understand it. I do know that it's crawfish season now and will be for the next couple of months. And I know that unless I'm a die-hard Louisiana native (which I'm not), I should buy the crawfish already boiled, because I don't possess a giant vat in my backyard in which to boil them (also useful for frying turkey at Thanksgiving). Anything that requires large yard cooking equipment (except for a basic grill) I'm just not going to tackle.
Last night actually was the first time I myself have attempted to host crawfish in my own home. I've been to a couple of crawfish boils, but it's just a daunting experience for this non-Louisianian. I made some inquiries from natives about where a good place to acquire the little guys would be, and I must say I'm quite pleased with their recommendation, Schaefer and Rusich Seafood off of Lake Ave in Metairie. The crawfish were so tasty, and the seasoning was perfect. I called them up to place my order. Not knowing really anything about serving crawfish, I asked how many pounds they would suggest for feeding four people. They suggested 15-20 pounds, and since we're all novices, I opted for 15. Ezra, our friend, volunteered to go pick them up, and came home with a big bag of 15 pounds of boiled crawfish. Adventure time!
Eating crawfish is messy business. We coated the table with paper bags, and I served only finger food (veggies, corn on the cob, garlic bread) so that we wouldn't have to deal with utensils. And for several hours we ripped heads and dismantled tails with our one Cajun music CD playing in the background for added ambience. All the meat is in the tail, and if any of us really knew what we were doing, the motion of ripping head off and obtaining the meat from the tail would be nothing, but we are all inexperienced and spent the evening carefully picking apart the tail trying to get at the meat in some semblance of chunks. It's a great time. A lot of fun! I'll have to admit, that when I first envisioned our "crawfish boil" I pictured it out on our porch on a warm spring evening. However it's been quite cold, rainy, and dreary, so we ended up having a cozy picnic indoors.
Comments
Those little guys look gross! I'm sure they taste better than they look. But man the vat of crawfish at Whole Foods here in ATL made my stomach turn, I only stopped so Josiah could watch them crawling around.
Posted by: katiek | March 16, 2005 2:29 PM
I think the fact that they're so scary looking is half the fun. I'll never forget the time I saw a whole shrimp, head and all, for the first time. After living here awhile, one does get used to whole seafood. And the crawfish were tasty last night!!
Posted by: Jeannette | March 16, 2005 3:18 PM
Once when I was 10 I went crawfishing at a reservoir in Denver. We tied raw liver onto a string and threw it into the shallows and pulled the catch in. We caught about two coolers full, and the fishing was fun but the poor dead cooked crawfish make 10-year-old Krista squirm with grossed-outness.
Posted by: Krista | March 16, 2005 3:31 PM
I think those kinds of river crawfish (crawdads, as they're sometimes called) may be a little different than the Louisiana ones, because of the brackish water, maybe? I'm not sure, but that's what I think someone told me once.
Posted by: Jeannette | March 16, 2005 3:35 PM
The first time I came to Louisiana was on a mission trip in 9th grade (to help rebuild houses after Hurricane Andrew), and our church group went to New Orleans for one evening. We knew we were supposed to get crawfish while we were there, and our youth leader at the time was one of those adventurous types, so we found some restaurant in the Quarter and ended up ordering a giant pile of crawfish. They brought them out to us, dumped them on the table (which was covered with newspaper), and proceeded to show us novices how to eat them. I don't even remember what else we ate, just that eating the crawfish was surprisingly fun and tasty.
It was really cool, but I haven't had any since then even though we've lived here for almost two years! Being married to a vegetarian really cuts down on one's ability to eat things that have to be dissected, for fear of grossing out one's spouse. =)
Posted by: Erica | March 16, 2005 4:28 PM
Ha! Yea, we were commenting last night that this was fun activity we could not do with Jack and Erica...oh well, there's plenty of other things to do. :)
Posted by: Jeannette | March 16, 2005 6:29 PM
I'm feeling so envious right now. . . Last time I had crawfish was at my Maw Maw's house in Metairie when I was expecting #1--who is almost 9!
I was born at Jefferson Parish hospital, so between reading about your coming baby and the crawfish, I'm feeling awfully sentimental. . .
Posted by: TulipGirl | March 27, 2005 12:12 PM